


End of the Line

by suliel



Category: Bright (2017)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, More plot less romance, Mystery, Slow Burn, care, oof this is my first ao3 fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-02-23 08:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suliel/pseuds/suliel
Summary: In the aftermath of the disaster involving Officers Ward and Jakoby, Agents Kandomere and Montehugh are left to tidy up and cover up the remaining evidence of what actually happened— including coming up with what to do with an Inferni hostage who legally doesn’t exist.





	1. A New Case

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RunMild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunMild/gifts).



“What do you mean... we aren’t done with this case?”  
The blue-haired elf leaned over his supervisor’s desk, though his hand was careful not to stray past the imaginary line created by the terse woman’s title-card.

Arethusa Novak, SAC; Magic Division.

Special Agent in Charge.

He’d kill to have that title card on his desk— though, that would be contrary to what was necessary to get it.  
Either way, Special Agent Novak was sitting in front of him with a bland, dry expression, her left ear flicking in displeasure.  
“While I do admit that you and Agent Montehugh have done an admirable job in keeping the nature of this... incident under wraps, you still have clean-up to do.”  
She leaned back in her leather office chair as if it were a golden throne of old, long, blonde hair reaching down to her hips in a perfect, uninterrupted curtain. She was from a family of elvish traditionalists, and so her hair had been untouched for her entire life, and as such, she was seen as inherently more trustworthy and noble. Kandomere grit his teeth. Old-fashioned bitch.  
“You will receive your due compensation after I have approved that clean-up as completed!”  
“And what do you want us to clean up, exactly?” Montehugh asked with just enough sharpness to make Special Agent Novak glare at him— but not enough for her to react any more than that.  
“Agent Kandomere... Your report, as sent to me, relates that Officer Jakoby disclosed the true story of the event before he and Officer Ward agreed to... comply with the Statue of Magical Secrecy and not disclose the true events, yes?”  
“...He did,” Kandomere answered slowly, eyeing his superior with a hint of jaded annoyance, trying to gauge her intentions. However, as she was also a high elf, she knew how to shield her thoughts from the inherent introspectiveness of other elves— meaning, he couldn’t read shit from her expression.  
“He told of a young elf-girl who betrayed the Inferni. Tikka?”  
“Correct.”  
“If she survived, she could be a useful informant... or a loose end. Find out which of those three she is— dead, informant, or danger— and report it back to me. If there is information to be gained from her... investigate and eradicate all evidence of the true nature of these events. If she is a threat, eliminate her.”  
“Of course,” Kandomere hissed lowly, rising from his seat. Great— another tedious and open-ended task to keep him toiling under her feet. Arethusa knew what she was doing, oh, yes, she did— trapping him for another 20 years into a wild goose chase.  
“You are dismissed.”  
Kandomere and Montehugh exited her office, Kandomere wearing a dark and frustrated expression, Montehugh looking sardonically dry and put-off as he walked behind him.  
“I thought Jakoby— I thought he spoke of her as if she had passed,” Montehugh commented as they climbed into the work car. “We can just get an official statement from them about her death and be done with it.”  
“It is never that easy, Montehugh,” Kandomere snapped as the engine started and they began the drive to the LAPD headquarters. “Even if she is dead, Novak will just find another way to busy us with the aftermath of this regrettable mess.”

Once at LAPD, they ordered an interview with Jakoby— not Ward. Whereas Ward was the level-headed one who knew how to handle the federal agents, Jakoby had jumped at the opportunity to freely spew the story during their last interaction.  
However, it seemed that Ward had taken time to instruct Jakoby on how to deal with them— as now, he refused their questions and requested repeatedly for Ward to be present.  
“No, I have nothing to say— not— not unless Officer Ward is present!”  
After hearing those words for the thousandth time that day, Kandomere was a thread away from losing his grip on his air of controlled stiffness and snapping. So he did snap— very sharply indeed at the officer guarding the door, ordering that Ward be let in.  
Before Ward could say a word, Montehugh was shoving him into a seat and Kandomere was snapping at him tersely.  
“Listen. Your partner refuses to speak without you present. I really don’t care who I get this information from, but if I get the answers I need, I’d be more than willing to pull favorably at the strings of fate for the one who answers me!”  
Ward calmly leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head cooly. Jakoby saw this and tried to mimic it, though the weight of his bulky arms nearly tipped his chair over, so he cleared his throat awkwardly and put his hands back in his lap.  
Once his partner was done making a scene, Ward spoke smoothly.  
“And the question for which the answers will be rewarded is...?”  
“Do you or do you not have access to an informant about the possible whereabouts of Inferni hideouts and bases of operation?” Montehugh snapped, leaning over the table at them threateningly as Kandomere paced the room.  
Ward and Jakoby looked between themselves slowly, not answering.  
“I will accept...” Kandomere purred quietly from a far corner of the room, sharp, glowing gaze piercing Ward’s. “...full anonymity of said informant, and federal protection and pardon, should it be... needed.”  
Ward raised his brows and then nodded.  
“Yeah... We could get you some intel.”  
“Yeah!” Jakoby seconded eagerly before turning to Ward and whispering painfully loudly. “Tikka will tell us any—“  
Ward kicked him exasperatedly.  
“Fuck sake, Nick!”  
“Oh. Should I not have said her—?”  
“Of course the fuck not!”  
“Well I— I whispered—“  
“Whisper-shouted, maybe!”  
“ENOUGH!” Montehugh snapped, slamming his hands on the table and shutting them up so Kandomere could speak without raising his voice.  
“I didn’t hear it,” He snarled solely to get the cumbersome duo to move on. “Get me information as soon as possible and I didn’t hear a thing. You have one week.”  
“Right. One week,” Ward repeated as confirmation.  
“One week. One. Week. Seven d—“ Jakoby started to echo, but Ward elbowed him and he quieted, muttering under his breath.  
“Get out.” Montehugh snapped, and Ward put his hands up in mock surrender, leading the way out of the room.  
“Buffoons,” The human agent chuckled, shaking his head and then scoffing. “Street cops.”  
“They may be— regrettably thick-headed, but they are useful...” Kandomere stated quietly, mostly to himself. “Well, they will be if they can come through with the intel I need.”  
“What are you planning to do while we wait for the call?” Montehugh asked as they headed out of the interrogation room and started on their way out of the building. “Knowing those two, they’ll call at the last minute.”  
“I’m taking time off,” Kandomere snapped. “The Spirits know I deserve it.”  
“Ah, I guess I’ll take some time off as well...” Montehugh replied as they climbed into the car. “See the family, you know.”  
“You mean go home to your mother?” Kandomere jested dryly, knowing his human partner had recently been divorced and was now living with his aged mother.  
“Hey, hey,” Montehugh protested. “It’s temporary, alright?”  
Kandomere didn’t answer, though there was a shadow of a smile on his face.

A week later found Kandomere sitting in his loft next to his company phone, tensely waiting for the call. Finally, it rang— and he let it ring a few moments before picking it up, just to be frustrating to the person on the other end.  
Ward spoke as soon as the phone was at his ear.  
“I got your lead. My source says there’s a ritual site where the Inferni convenes.”  
“Where?”  
He wrote down the address and instructions for entry as Ward related, then hung up and called Montehugh.  
“Your vacation is over. Meet me at HQ in an hour.”


	2. The Shootout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After obtaining a lead in chapter one, Kandomere and Montehugh are sent to supervise the raid in the case that a magical incident occurs.

“I can’t believe they’re really making us sit and wait out here.”  
“It’s Inferni. Of course we are here.”  
They were sitting in their car, waiting as the SWAT team went in and did their business. And by business, it meant raiding and clearing the lower basement levels of a high-end elvish boutique— the location Ward had sent him to.  
He knew immediately after he spoke that they were at the right place— because even from their ‘safe’ vantage point a block away behind a barricade, they both could hear a flood of gunfire eminating from the boutique.  
There were a few confusing and tense moments where all they could hear was bursts of gunfire and shouting— then it all went quiet and they received an “all-clear”.  
They then exited the car and approached the scene, stepping around the roadblocks and coming to a rest next to one of the SWAT cars.  
Kandomere stood by and mostly allowed the situation to solve itself— he didn’t have to get involved, really. No, he and Montehugh were above getting their hands dirty. If he was lucky, everything would go smoothly and he’d be done with the assignment.  
But nothing was ever as simple as that.  
“There’s a... problem...”  
Kandomere glowered at the centaur SWAT officer who approached him, his eyes piercing, cold, and very pissed-off.  
“The problem is?”  
“Very... sensitive... matter...” The officer mumbled furtively, his forequarters pawing the ground anxiously, his tail flicking tensely. “You should come see.”  
The centaur led them to another officer, a human who led them down into the basement.  
There, they found a small, iron box, from which weak cries were heard.  
Montehugh was hung up on the few dead Inferni on the ground, while Kandomere coldly stepped over their bodies and moved to the box.  
There were magical runes on the barriers of the four sides, sealing the box shut— and there was only one opening on the side. Kandomere looked in from an distance and saw the side of a head and a bloodied, pointed ear.  
“They used the box as a shield. Whoever’s inside is clearly not worth as much to them as their lives are...”  
“Which is strange, considering—”  
“—The Inferni die together, with each other,” Kandomere finished for Montehugh. “They would never betray one another. If this– was an Inferni– they wouldn’t have put them in something like this...”  
He trailed his fingers along the edges of the box, tapping softly.  
“...They wouldn’t dare use another as a shield. The don’t need to.”  
He took out a handkerchief and wiped the hand that touched the box, then cast the now-soiled cloth away.  
“Take it to HQ.”

He and Montehugh oversaw the shipment of the box containing the unfamiliar elf to the Magic Task Force HQ, and waked alongside as it was delivered into a suspect containment cell.  
Special Agent Novak was waiting for him, smirking boldly.  
“Great work, Agent Kandomere. I trust you’ll handle the freeing and interrogation of the rescued hostage?”  
He barely restrained a snarl, furious that once again she was dropping more work on his head.  
“Of course, Special Agent Novak,” He hissed at her, passing his superior in a heated rush. He knew on a rational level that with his 20+ years of experience in the Magic department, as well as his status and an elf, he was likely the only one with the credentials and knowledge to do the job— but that didn’t stop the swell of anger bristling under his skin.  
He entered the room with the box and realized it was a puzzle— if he could connect the runes on each side in the proper order, it would— theoretically— open.  
Montehugh was situated in the doorway, ready to pull Kandomere out in case it went wrong; the elf began slowly drawing lines between runes, and within 10 minutes, had entirely solved the first side.  
It was beginning to spell something out— the first side was a rhyme; some elvish nonsense about a star falling into filth and creating a monster. The second side was another rhyme about cursed blood and sealing fate, the third a prayer to the dark lord, the fourth a curse to the one within. The strange rhymes unsettled him, and he read them out loud to Montehugh for him to write them down, who made a few dry-humored remarks critiquing the word choice and rhyme. They neither amused nor angered Kandomere, and simply faded into background noise as he finished the top side of the box. He worked until all the visible sides were solved, and then translated for Montehugh the last side.  
“I will unseal when the sun makes a full cycle in the sky.” It was a countdown, set to open in 24 hours. They had 24 hours to decide whether or not to open the box or seal it again.  
Kandomere rose to exit. 24 hours— tomorrow at 6pm.  
“Montehugh— until this time tomorrow, no one is to enter this room. No one is to have a live feed into this room except for Novak, you or I. And nothing at all is to leave this room!”  
“I suppose that means—“ Montehugh started, but Kandomere was already down the hall before he finished. “—I have to stakeout the live feed room. Okay. Let’s go stakeout the live feed room...”

Kandomere drove back to his loft, his lips pressed into a tight line. He did not at all enjoy how things were playing out. Everything was taking so damn long! The breakneck speed of the last case had seemed stressful and nightmarish, but the slow, choppy crawl of the new case was a headache all in it’s own.  
He stepped into his loft with his brows knitted, unable to shake a tense feeling about the current case. He wasn’t typically this frustrated over work, but the seemingly non-stop rush of the past case and following drag of the current case was starting to get under his skin. He did not at all enjoy waiting on something he wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure about, and the elf in the box was certainly something he was entirely unsure about.  
He trusted Montehugh, however, so he was not so stressed that he could not rest— still, leaving the job unfinished and waiting on the countdown to finish left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, and he fell asleep with a sour expression.


	3. In the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time comes for the agents to see what is in the box— and it’s nothing that they could ever expect.

Kandomere didn’t bother to rush the next day, as he waited for the time to come. He rose from bed when it suited him, dressed as casual as an elf could, considering their inherent desire for beauty and aestheticism— took his wallet and his personal vehicle, drove down to the Special Elven District, and went shopping.  
He bought a couple new suits from his favorite tailor, new shoes, and a few fresh bottles of blue-grey dye.  
The she-elf behind the counter at the hair salon spoke to him in a soft, smooth tone, her silver-painted eyelids low and her maroon-tinted lips curled in a teasing smile.  
She did this every time, and it annoyed him to no end. He knew she was attracted to him, and she knew he wasn’t entertained by it— but still seemed to revel in laying herself out for him.  
_“The usual, darling?”_ She cooed in accented elvish with a coy smirk, bordering on friendly and flirtatious despite the fact that they played this god awful game every time he came here.  
_“Yes,”_ He answered dully, not caring to shut her down our push her away. Unfortunately, she only seemed to find his deadpan response even more entertaining, and giggled lightly. He found himself wondering where her bloodline originated from; unlike him, she probably was descended from wild elves, a magically inclined but otherwise unadvanced and unmannered society from the days before the dark lord. Widely looked down upon by elves descended from settled, advanced, cultured societies.  
But he put it out of his mind— all elves lived together now, at the top of the world. Though it still didn’t change the fact that he found her irritating and frivolous.  
She passed him his custom blend, making sure to brush his hand gently, the wavering rainbow-glow of a glamour dancing from her fingers and rippling across his skin for a second. She smirked and waved.  
_“Hope to see you back soon, darling.”_  
He didn’t even spare her a response— simply returning to his sports car and dropping the merchandise in the back.  
He drove back to his loft, dressing down in more casual but equally fashionable clothing and spent a while re-dying his hair. The classic, elvish white-blond was beginning to show again, and though it was a sign of status, he enjoyed the blue more.  
He had time to kill even after that, so he showered, dried his hair, and dressed in his new clothes before driving back to the HQ.  
He arrived just as Montehugh called him, groggy and sleepy, slurring his words as he informed Kandomere that the box had opened.  
“Terrifying... Box blew open like a bomb... Whoever’s inside, peeked out a second and then kicked the remains of the box into a corner... They’re still hiding in it...”  
“Good. I’m coming in now. Get ready for an interrogation.”  
“Right, boss...”  
He joined up with Montehugh on the way in, who was very clearly exhausted and sleep-deprived. He felt bad for a fraction of a moment for forcing him to pull a 24 hour plus shift, but then a second later he remembered that humans did the dirty work and elves took control— and the moment of pity was gone.  
He went to the door of the detainment cell and the retinal scan opened it to him.  
Inside, two sides of the box had been blown into the wall and cot, stuffing and drywall spilling across the floor.  
Shoved into the corner, protected by two walls and the end of the cot was the box, and he could hear faint crying.  
“Hey!” Montehugh immediately shouted, adept at forceful interrogation. “Get out of the box, come out where we can see you!”  
There was no reply, only a soft sob, and some rustling.  
Montehugh took out a police flashlight and shined it down into the box, illuminating a pair of long, lithe calves, and a set of arms clad in long sleeves wrapped around them to shield the rest of her body. They were heavily bruised and scraped up from what was visible but were otherwise pale and smooth.  
“Hey! Answer me! What’s your name?”  
No response. She kicked her foot a bit and buried her head more deeply into her arms, a lock of tangled white hair falling over her wrist.  
“HEY!”  
Montehugh reached out to grab her wrist, but Kandomere realized in that moment that there were already matching ring-shaped bruises on her wrists and stopped his partner.  
“Montehugh, stop. She’s clearly been abused. Let’s leave the interrogating up to one of the criminal psychologists.”  
Montehugh sighed and let her wrist go, rising and following Kandomere to the door.  
But as the elf and human agents fully cleared the doorway and began to shut the door, a weak voice called out.  
_“Blue,”_  
“That’s—“ Montehugh started.  
“—Elvish.” Kandomere finished in a smooth tone, turning and stepping back in.  
_“Are you speaking to me?”_ Kandomere asked slowly, the elvish rolling off of his tongue easily.  
_“Blue,”_ She stated again in confirmation, pointing slightly with her finger, her voice shaky, weak, and afraid. _“I will speak to Blue.”_  
_“My name is not Blue,”_ He corrected, though he maintained a gentle tone as he approached the elf in the box. _“My name is Kandomere. I need to ask you a few questions. May I?”_  
The white strands of hair spilling over her arms bobbed twice, and he took that as a nod, coming to sit on the cot near the box.  
_“What is your name?”_  
_“Akaya,”_ She responded quietly, and he saw faintly, through the dark shadows in the box, her brows and the tops of her eyes as she peeked out at him.  
_“Akaya,”_ He repeated soothingly. _“Akaya, how old are you?”_  
_“45,”_ She whispered back. Elves fully matured physically at 50, meaning in human ages she would be in her late teens or early 20s.  
But to an elf his age, she was as good as a child— especially when he considered the possibility that she might have grown up in that 3’x3’ box. Inexperienced, uneducated, afraid.  
_Almost_ a child. There was no denying the maturity of her form, and dressed as she was in boyshort-style underwear and a tight, long-sleeve shirt, he could clearly see even in the dim shadows of the box her gentle curves.  
_“Akaya, where did you grow up?”_ He asked smoothly, trying to feel out how long she had been confined without asking the surely traumatizing question directly.  
_“I don’t know,”_ She whispered quietly, though now her voice was a fraction louder. He felt strangely proud that he was drawing her out of her literal box, strangely excited at the prospect of getting the victim to open up to him when she had denied Montehugh even a whisper. _“They moved me a lot. I never knew where.”_  
He nodded along kindly, treating her with unusual delicacy. After hearing she had been moved around quite a lot, he wondered if Akaya had been part of an underground trafficking ring; it would explain the bruises on her... For some reason, the thought of the young elf being used in that way didn’t sit right with him. _“Who are ‘they’?”_ He asked to clear up her previous statement.  
_“The Inferni,”_ She murmured in response, her voice shaking with fear. Montehugh shared a look with Kandomere, recognizing the name of the terrorist group. _“Worshippers of the dark lord...”_  
_“Why did they keep you?”_ Kandomere pressed, some of his delicacy leaving him as he grew suspicious of the small elf's purpose.  
_“They needed me...”_  
As she spoke this, she paused to look up at Montehugh and suddenly Montehugh snapped.  
“Wait— what the fuck?!”  
He shot his hand forward and grabbed her wrist, yanking her out of the box. She screamed and fell to the ground, and Kandomere saw that only the hair framing her face was white. The rest was a rich, dark brown, and while he wanted to believe it was dyed, part of him knew an elf would never dye their hair such a human color.  
Still, he shoved Montehugh away, enraged that his subordinate had violently interrupted an otherwise smooth interrogation.  
“Montehugh you fool—!”  
“Look at her fucking eyes!”  
Kandomere turned and found Akaya with her head in her arms, her face to the ground. He knelt next to her, careful not to let his new suit touch the rubble-littered floor, and began to speak to her in a pushy but gentle tone.  
_“Akaya, I’m sorry he hurt you, but— I need you to look up. I need you to look at me.”_  
_“No,”_ She sobbed, hiding her face deeper into her arms, the grey fabric of her shirt marked with suspicious, upsettingly dark stains. _“No! You’ll hate me!”_  
He put his hand on her shoulder firmly, shaking it gently.  
_“I won’t. Just look up. Akaya, please.”_  
She cried and shook her head again, arching her back to pull herself in smaller.  
_“Akaya LOOK UP!”_  
She still didn’t respond and at this, he grit his teeth and grabbed her hair, pulling her head up. Her eyes were screwed shut, but he took his hand and gently pushed her left brow up, and, realizing that he would simply force her eyes open, she sobbed and opened her eyes to avoid the pain and discomfort of being forced.  
What met his gaze were not the mirrored, reflective, shining eyes of an elf. No, what he saw were two wide, dark, human-blue eyes that were interspersed with flecks of a reflective, elvish silver, like broken mirror shards on blue velvet.  
A strange terror filled his mind and he moved his fingers to her full lips, pushing her upper lip up to reveal her teeth.  
They were flat in front— flat, small,  _human_ teeth— but there, next to his hand fisted in her hair, was a perfect, unscarred _elvish_ ear, pointed and long.  
He shoved her away and rose, stepping back in a rush, suddenly strangely greatful that he had been wearing leather gloves when he touched her.  
Montehugh watched as Kandomere stepped away. The human agent’s eyes were wide and disgusted as he opened his mouth to shoot off a vile, callous, honest statement.

  
“It’s a fucking half-breed!”


	4. Shielding Innocence

Montehugh, panicked and sleep deprived, drew his gun and cocked it quickly, directing it between Akaya’s eyes. She screamed and Kandomere reacted on instinct, smacking Montehugh’s hand off-target.   
The gun went off regardless, though the shot struck the wall and not Akaya.  
“Are you insane?!” Kandomere shouted as Akaya scrambled back to the box again. “You’d shoot a child?!”  
“You have a pretty twisted sense of what a child is!” Montehugh snapped back. “It’s clearly— ... _mature_!”  
“You know what I mean—“ He growled back, grabbing the barrel of Montehugh’s gun and forcing it to point to the ground. “— She’s harmless!”  
“There haven’t been half-breeds since the time of the dark lord,” Montehugh shouted, letting go of the gun. “He bred them for his army—“  
“Old wives’ tales!”   
“What, and the Inferni aren’t?”  
They glared at each other in terse silence for a few moments, before Montehugh muttered furiously.  
“If the public finds out that half-breeds have returned, it’ll cause social upheaval. People will panic in the streets! If the _human_ public find out that there’s a possibility that elves and humans can procreate—“  
Kandomere did not want to audibly admit it, but his mind finished Montehugh’s open-ended statement anyways. It would destroy the power dynamic between elves and humans. There would be revolts, revolutions, protesting in the streets. Akaya was proof that the superiority of elves could be subjective, and that in and of itself made her a threat, as well as put her in danger.  
The stories of half-breeds in the far past had been safely misconstrued by elves as torturous experiments forced into the world with dark magic— and regardless of whether the frail, child-like elf before them had been created with the help of magic or not, her existence was still a risky situation.  
“We can’t just fucking _shoot_ her!” Kandomere stated after he decided he didn’t have an answer to the issue at hand. Better to quickly turn the blame on another than face the music and risk his pride. “There’s protocols—“  
“ _What_ protocol?!” Montehugh demanded. “Tell me, what protocol is there for dealing with a half-breed?!”  
Kandomere drew a blank but quickly covered for it, opting for a general rule.  
“This is clearly above us. Let Novak deal with it!”  
“She’ll do the same damn thing I did—“ Montehugh snapped. “ _It_ doesn’t legally exist. No one will know or care if it disappears forever.”  
“ _She_ has a fucking _name_!”  
“It doesn’t _matter_!”  
There was a curt knock on the door and the two looked to the door, Special Agent Novak’s narrow and sharp face glaring through the wire-reinforced window.  
Kandomere opened the door to her and she stepped in smoothly, dressed in a sharp, angular, silver-grey fitted suit, a white blouse, and a floor-length fitted black skirt. She wore a bitter and curt expression, her lips twisted into a thin frown.  
“I was told there was a gunshot?”  
“The hostage is a fucking half-breed!” Montehugh shouted. “Human-elf!”  
Novak stepped towards the cage and looked down at Akaya for a moment before drawing her own gun without so much as blinking.  
Kandomere stepped in front of her, furious.  
“What the fuck is with you two and shooting an innocent child?!”  
“That is _not_ a child!” Montehugh and Novak snapped at the same time, their voices perfectly matched. Kandomere grit his teeth, still standing between them and Akaya.  
“Regardless! There has to be some solution other than _murdering_ her!”  
Special Agent Novak spoke smoothly and emotionlessly, as if they were simply dealing with some household pest and not a sentient person, which served only to further infuriate Kandomere.  
“That _thing_ is a danger to the stability of our society. It legally doesn’t exist; it doesn’t matter if we exterminate it or not.”  
“Stop talking about her like she’s some common _pest_ —“ Kandomere snapped, avoiding the topic of Akaya’s status as an undoubtable threat to society. “—She’s a _sentient person_!”  
“It doesn’t matter, Kandomere,” Montehugh snapped, standing behind Special Agent Novak. “Just turn around and forget you ever spoke to her. Novak pulls the trigger, we cremate the remains and that’s the end of this case—“  
“No. Let me take her in. I won’t let you kill an innocent— _person_ , not when there’s a chance we can—“  
Novak lowered her gun.  
“We can _what_ , Kandomere?” She demanded exhasteratedly. “Pay to put a shine on her eyes? To put crowns on her teeth? Bleach and dye her hair? Or will you just hide her in your bed since you clearly—“  
“ _Yes!_ ” He snapped frustratedly, overlooking her last comment. “If that’s what it takes to not be an accessory to murder, I’m willing to pay for all that myself!”  
“You’re insane,” Novak hissed, holstering her gun once again. “Acting so emotional, like a bloody _fucking_ human. Fine. Keep the bloody half-breed.”  
She turned to the door, her expression murderous.   
“If anyone— _anyone_ finds out about her— I will personally _put her down_ in front of you and blame you for _all of it._ ”   
She stopped at the door to hiss at him in elvish, her long, oval nails clicking on her gun holster threateningly.  
“... _and I will_ not _shoot her any place merciful or swift._ ”  
Kandomere bared his teeth briefly, snarling, before handing Montehugh’s gun back to him as Novak left.  
“You have no idea what you’ve just gotten yourself into,” Montehugh chuckled darkly, shaking his head.  
“I saved an innocent life and that is the only thing that matters.”   
He turned to look at the box, where Akaya was curled up with her hands over her head. The Inferni had brought something into the world that was destined to die, and the thought sickened him— that they could force a sentient being into a cursed existence where it would be hated and hunted no matter it’s innocence or peacefulness.

It was the essence of everything he hated about the Inferni.


	5. The Long Road Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kandomere manages to safely navigate the tense confrontation and diffuse the difficult situation— but that was only the beginning of his troubles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, guys, the amount of love and support I’ve received on this work is mind-blowing! I’ve never had this much feedback on any of my work before, and I am so greatful for it. 
> 
> This is and always will be dedicated to RunMild for inspiring me to start and to make alms for “borrowing” some tropes from their Kandomere fic, ehehehehehehehehehehehe..... please go read theirs as well!

Montehugh left the room to stand outside and Kandomere slowly re-approached the box, inside of which Akaya was hyperventilating and growling softly.  
“ _It’s over,_ ” He informed her cautiously. “ _I’m sorry they scared you— but it’s over now. It’s just me._ ”  
She made eye contact with him and he felt uncomfortable looking into her eyes, broken silver and blue pieces haphazardly arranged to form her irises. She blinked a few times and slowly came forward, though he noticed now an intense sense of distrust from her. Her shoulders were tense and raised, her upper arms flexed and waiting to snap— afraid, yes, but defensive, protective. Self-preservative.  
She stood in his presence for the first time, and he realized very clearly then that Montehugh and Novak were right; Akaya was certainly not a child, and she came all the way up to his nose, just a handful of inches shorter than him.  
He wondered then why he had been so instantaneously protective of her, even though she was a dirty half-breed; labeling her as a child made her easy to protect, because children are innocent, naïve, unable to protect themselves. But she was not a child, and by the tensing in her shoulders and the lightness on her feet he knew she would at least try to protect herself if she were attacked.  
She was a filthy, dirty, bastardization of normalcy— a half breed spawned from dark magic— why did he stand up for her?  
“ _We have to get you out of here._ ”  
He ignored the moral dilemma at hand, choosing to worry about it later, when things were calm. She reached out as if to take his hand, but he refused, not wanting to touch her.  
“ _It’s not safe for you here. We have to sneak you out._ ”  
He took the scratchy grey blanket from the cot and threw it over her head, hiding her most human features.  
“ _Hold this around you and walk where I walk._ ”  
She complied and held the cloth over her head, and he put his gloved hand on her shoulder over the blanket, guiding her out.  
Montehugh tailed along as Kandomere skillfully guided them through the complex to avoid difficult interactions.  
They made it through painlessly until they reached the last checkpoint to the garage.  
The lady at the checkbox stopped and smiled at him sweetly before turning in concern to the clearly half-undressed and hurriedly covered girl.  
“Hey Kandomere! How— wait, who’re you taking with you?”  
“Socialite that got caught in the crossfire at the raid,” Montehugh calmly covered for Kandomere. “He’d offered to escort her home personally.”  
“Awww, that’s sweet,” She crooned happily, before letting them out with a sugary smile. “I hope you get home alright, sweetie.”  
Neither Kandomere nor Akaya answered, and Montehugh muttered as he watched the two leave.  
“No English,”  
He wondered why he was covering for them. Maybe it was his pre-existing loyalty to his commanding officer.  
Maybe it was because he too... had seen the innocence in Akaya’s eyes.  
Because despite his rash actions— despite how he had been preconditioned to think half-breeds were disgusting and inherently evil— he knew Kandomere was right.

  
She was innocent.

  
Afraid.

  
Harmless.

 

At his car, Kandomere ordered her to lay the blanket on the luxury car seat so that she would not get it dirty. She complied and crawled in after it awkwardly, not quite knowing how to sit in a car seat.  
Kandomere paused and pressed a button on his dashboard, which automatically mirrored the windows to make it impossible to look inside.  
“ _Do you not know how to sit in a car?_ ” He questioned curtly. She glanced over at him with a faint expression of shame and shook her head, hugging her knees closer to her chest and tucking her face behind them.  
He sighed and looked straight ahead, starting to get frustrated with her incapability.  
“ _Sit still. Legs forward,_ ” He instructed her dryly. “ _Feet on the floor. See the strap next to the car door? Grab it. That’s your seatbelt. Clip it in like I did._ ”  
In her defense, she payed close attention and did exactly what he said, learning quickly and silently.  
Once she was safely seated, he started the engine and drove out of the parking garage, making his way onto the crowded freeway.  
Akaya turned her head to the window in awe, watching the scenery flick past with an eager and curious expression. Her eyes couldn’t move fast enough; there were so many bright and shiny things, so many unfamiliar colors and textures.  
And then she saw the sky, and her mouth formed a perfect o as she looked up at it, her eyes struggling to track the clouds and birds that crossed it.  
And then she looked into the sun, though not for long, as it quickly burned white spots on her vision and she hissed and looked away, rubbing her eyes with a soft, upset whine.  
Kandomere watched from the corner of his eye, focused mostly on the road— but still, he found her curious behavior pitifully amusing, and even found a single, quiet snort of bemused laughter when she yelled and drew away from the window, rubbing her eyes.  
“ _Don’t do that,_ ” He informed her in a marginally more relaxed tone. “ _You don’t have elvish vision. Your eyes will burn.”_

“ _It already burns..._ ” She hissed softly, still rubbing the heels of her hands on her eyes. “ _And the dots won’t go away!_ ”

He sighed then, shifting his grip on the steering wheel.  
“ _Stop rubbing your eyes, you’re making it worse. Just sit still and wait a minute, your eyes will readjust by themselves._ ”  
She complied and was silent and still, watching the world go by through the shaded windshield instead.  
And then they were crossing into the Special Elven District and she gasped and leaned forward in her seat, her ears flicking excitedly before reaching up in eager attention.  
“ _Where are we going?_ ”  
“ _My loft. Sit back, you’re making me nervous._ ”  
She pouted a bit but leaned back again, staring up at the billboards and glittering buildings in awe.  
“ _It’s so clean!_ ”  
“ _Of course it is,_ ” He commented dryly, thinking it quite obvious that the Elven district would be spotlessly clean. A moment later, however, he reminded himself that she’d said she grew up with the Inferni; and if her behavior was any kind of indication of her upbringing, she clearly hadn’t been exposed to much. He realized he should probably be more gentle with her— regardless of... what she was or wasn’t racially... She was most importantly, impressionable, inexperienced, and vulnerable, and had likely experienced more than enough callous treatment. She was, after all, quite... helpless, despite the spark of fierceness he had seen in her before.  
That was another thing— he couldn’t have her depending on him for everything. He’d have to find a way to teach her— about the world, about herself... how to defend herself, how to get by on her own. She needed to know how to take care of herself and live in the world she was now free to be a part of... or, perhaps, not.

But he’d figure that out later.

Right now, he had some important errands to run.


	6. Shop Till You Drop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kandomere makes the first steps the journey of making Akaya elvish-passing.

He stopped en route to his loft, parking on the street side of an outdoor shopping strip.  
He turned to Akaya, expression dark and tense.  
“ _Stay in the car. Don’t touch anything. Don’t make noise._ ”  
She looked back and nodded silently, her elbow-length hair shifting too stiffly with the movement. He grit his teeth, offended by how dirty her hair was... and then softened his expression. She couldn’t help it. He’d fix it soon anyways.  
It was in her face, and for a moment he felt a peculiarly strong urge to move it away; but he quickly overruled the urge, thinking it too far outside his comfortable borders of reservation.  
Instead, he turned the car radio on to a popular radio station for new elvish music as he killed the engine.  
“ _Here. You know what music is?_ ”  
“ _Yes..._ ” She murmured softly, and it seemed a bit prickly, as if his assumption of the extent of her unfamiliarity with everyday things had upset her.  
He still was too proud for an apology or a change of personality, however, so he chose to overlook it as he rolled the windows down just enough for air to circulate but not enough for anyone to see in.  
“ _Sit in here and listen. I’ll be back._ ”

He left the car, locking it behind him, and entered the trendy boutique just one shop down. He normally frequented the masculine section, but was able to chase down a few coordinated but “simple” outfits and clothes for Akaya. He aimed for the basics and just the basics at first— some gender neutral rose-embroidered loose jeans, a few stylish but minimalistic tops, socks, casual shoes... And then he got carried away buying a few jackets and sweaters, and simple jewelry pieces, and then he was picturing in his head outfits to match her skin tone, jewelry pieces to compliment her bone structure and—  
He paused as he found himself walking in the direction of the makeup racks, stopping dead in his tracks. What the hell was he doing? He just needed simple things for Akaya to wear other than that disgusting, ratty old grey sweater and underwear.  
Fuck, underwear!

...Hell no.

She could do that herself later.

He turned to check out, stopping to put back a few (or rather several) items. She didn’t need fancy or brand-name clothing. She didn’t know the difference between Balmain and Forever 21. Hell, she wouldn’t even know what either of those were.  
He got up to the counter and the cashier smirked playfully.  
“Making up for something?”  
It took him a moment to realize she though he was buying gifts for a woman close to him— likely romantically— and he quickly thought to shoot down the assumption... but found himself noncommittally agreeing. Hell, it was easier than thinking up an excuse for why he was buying several well-coordinated and ergonomically wearable outfits.  
“Something... along those lines.”  
He checked out and then called a human bellhop to carry his bags for him as he went next door to the hair salon. He wondered what had gotten the human this fairly humiliating job this far into elvish territory; surely he owed someone some debt or had a magical contract.  
Or maybe it was one of those strange humans hell-bent on thinking they were meant to be elves. Those were the easiest to rope into enchanted contracts— just promise them a life in the center of the elven district and they leap over themselves to sign the contract without reading into what kind of life it actually would be.  
He put it out of his mind as walked into the salon and picked up a true black dye, the only thing dark enough to cover Akaya’s darker, human hair.  
When he stopped at the cashier, the usual woman came forward and also began to pester him. Fuck, would no one just shut up and check him out? Wait— not that kind of checking him out. That was what the problem was.  
“ _New color?_ ” She pouted falsely before sliding into a sly smile. “ _But blue looks... so good on you._ ”  
“ _It’s not for me._ ” He stiffly corrected, meeting her gaze with a cold and pointed expression.  
“ _Who then...?_ ” She teased, trying to get him to open up to her. He didn’t respond in the slightest, simply swiping his card and taking the bottle of dye from her before she could even bag it.  
“ _Good day._ ”  
He walked off, tossing the bottle into one of the other bags the human bellhop was carrying and leaving. This whole ordeal was somewhere between aggravating and intriguing, irritating and exciting— he only hoped it would all be worth it in the end.

This was enough for now— there were several pairs of dark sunglasses Akaya could wear and a few fashion-masks from the japanese boutique as well.  
Enough to make a fairly good disguise until he could get her to his— connections underground.  
He returned to the car and popped the trunk to allow the human to load his bags in the car, and walked to the driver’s side, waiting to hear the trunk click shut before he got in.  
The bellhop shut the trunk and waved, and Kandomere unlocked the front door and slid in smoothly, his suit remaining immaculate and unwrinkled.  
Akaya hand followed his instructions and was sitting silently and patiently in her seat still, but he noticed that she was tapping her fingers on her thigh to the beat of the music and bobbing her head along as well. As soon as he sat down, however, she stopped, and he felt strangely disappointed that she want comfortable enough to do that in front of him.  
He did, however, understand that he was not the sort of person it would seem reasonable to do that around; he had been fairly stiff with her before.  
He shook it off and gunned the engine, slowly pulling into the street and finishing the trip to his loft. It was in an exclusive apartment complex fairly deep into the Special Elven District, far from any human clutter or pollution, and especially far from any orcish filth or nonsense.  
He pulled into the parking garage and then drove to the car elevator; his loft was on the top floor, and was equipped with a garage of its own, fortunately enough. There was no way he could sneak grubby, horribly-dressed Akaya in otherwise.  
When the elevator reached his floor, he slowly idled into his one-car garage and parked, shutting the engine off as the elevator doors closed behind him.  
He popped the trunk and unlocked the doors, turning to Akaya calmly.  
“ _You saw how I opened the door before?_ ”  
She nodded and he continued.  
“ _Get out of the car, grab the blanket, and help me take the bags from the back._ ”  
She complied immediately, and he gave her credit for being an attentive listener and dutiful learner— at least she was trying not to be a burden.  
The two— Akaya holding significantly more bags than Kandomere— made their way into the loft, and set the bags at the door for the moment.  
Akaya looked around in awe— it was a gorgeous, spacious location, and almost entirely modern, though some classic elvish architectural styles were still visible with the incredibly high, arched doors and rounded rooms.  
From where they were at the garage door, there was a stylish kitchenette with an island in the middle, all marble and oak on the left and an expansive and neatly arranged living room on the right. The living room had no exterior walls; just one unbroken panel of glass that showed off a stunning skyline of the Special Elven District, and there, a teeny-tiny-broken-up thread on the very edge of the horizon— the rest of L.A.  
Akaya looked around in awe, amazed by the arched ceilings and hanging lantern-lights, her eyes wide and her mouth in a dazed, shy smile. He could almost see her mind whirring behind her eyes, taking in the sights, eagerly processing and absorbing all the new stimuli.  
He smirked proudly, closing and locking the garage door behind himself.  
“ _It’s a nice place, is it not?_ ”  
“ _It’s gorgeous,_ ” She whispered quietly, before a sudden look of uncomfortablility crossed her expression and she turned her face to the floor.  
“ _What is it?_ ” He asked in slight confusion, regarding her with an attentive look.  
“ _I don’t— I don’t belong anywhere this nice._ ” She started, suddenly drawing her arms in to her sides and raising her shoulders to her ears, making herself small.  
He answered a second later, his expression not changing in the slightest.

“ _We’ll fix that. Come with me._ ”


	7. The Wash & Trim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No summary for this one because it’s basically a continuation of last chapter.... I’m struggling to keep my chapters similar lengths, this one is so long and I had to cut it off again in the middle of an interaction just so I could update ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡ It’s really... fluffy? and I’m not used to writing fluff so pLEASE let me know what you think!!

He removed his jacket and started into the loft, Akaya tiptoeing behind him on bare feet. He stopped at a door and hung his jacket on a hook outside, stepping in and rolling his sleeves up.  
Akaya followed him in; it was an immaculate bathroom, large, brightly-lit, and in a wash of faded white and grey tones, from ash to coal in color. The tones were blocked in around the room in a minimalistic style, large, swooping forms painted solid colors.  
The shower and bath were separate, and both were equally large; the bath was set into the floor in grey marble slabs, and the shower was in the corner, framed by glass and tiled in small, matte black tiles.  
There were two showerheads; one in the ceiling that would shower water straight down, and a second extendible showerhead hung on the wall over a swooping ledge protruding from the wall for which to lay back on.  
He removed his shoes and socks and opened the shower door, and Akaya stepped in, the tiles cool and smooth under her feet.  
“ _Sit on the ledge._ ”  
She complied and he touched a screen on the wall, taking the extendible showerhead in his hand. He toyed with the controls for a moment, and then held the showerhead over Akaya’s head.  
A second later a huge flush of hot, rose-scented water blasted the side of her head.  
She spluttered and gasped, moving her hands over her head, curling up as the water soaked her down.  
“ _Relax. It won’t hurt you._ ”  
She lowered her hands slowly, pushing her damp hair out of the way of her face, blinking the water from her eyes, her sweater soaking and clinging to her skin.  
He pressed another button on the screen and the extending part of the showerhead went stiff, holding it in place for him.  
“ _Sit still. Don’t get me wet._ ”  
He tapped the screen and a part of the tiled wall behind her spun to reveal a shelf full of various soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and hair oils. He took a bottle of shampoo from the shelf and opened it, turning to Akaya silently.  
“ _Close your eyes. Don’t open until I say so_.”  
He squeezed almost the entire bottle on top of her head, the sweet perfume of the product filling the shower.  
With the clean water rushing over her skin, he felt comfortable coming in contact with her— her took her jaw in one hand to steady her head and used the other to wash her hair, lithe fingers slowly combing out the tangled locks.  
Her hair was thicker than elvish hair; less fine, and more of it. He’d have to cut it to hide that— a feathery cut would give the illusion of thinner hair. He’d leave a majority of the pale, more elvish hair in the front alone— make that the focus point of the cut to distract from the rest of her hair. A short style would also show her ears better, which were small by elvish terms but certainly pointed.  
He rinsed all the bubbles from her hair and then turned the water off.  
“ _You can open your eyes now. Wait here, I’ll be right back._ ”  
He left and returned with stylist’s scissors, toothed on one side and with a delicate, thin blade on the other.  
“ _Turn around. Sit crisscross facing the wall_.”  
She complied and he started snipping at her wet hair, careful to avoid her white hair for now. He snipped at first random chunks at ear-level, just to quickly cut off the bottom foot and a half of her hair, and then began slowly and much more carefully layering and thinning her hair.  
She sat still at first, but the crisp sound of the metal scissors closing and opening and the sensation of his hands in her hair made her drowsy and relaxed, and her straight posture relaxed, her eyes fluttering closed.

_Snip snip_

  
_Snip_

_Snip snip snip..._

 

  
“ _How do you know to do this?_ ”  
He stopped suddenly, his hands going still— the tone of her voice had caught him off guard. It was sleepy, soft, relaxed— barely audible, a sweet whisper. More... vulnerable and trusting than it had been before.

A strange sensation flickered across his skin, but, untrusting of the unfamiliar experience, he brushed it off and responded in his usual dry, efficient tone.  
“ _I do my own hair,_ ” He stated calmly. “ _It gives me more control._ ”  
She didn’t respond or question further, so he silently finished and then tapped her shoulder.  
“ _Turn around._ ”  
She turned, swinging her legs over the edge of the ledge, looking at the floor between his feet.  
“ _Chin up_ ,”  
She turned her chin upwards but still wouldn’t look at him, and he realized how invasive he had been; grabbing at her face, washing her hair for her.... And, i’m known to him, while he hadn’t meant it, it had been the greatest amount of positive personal attention she’d ever received, and she didn’t know what to do or say about it.  
“ _Relax_ ,” He informed her in as soft a tone as he could muster despite his unfamiliarity with her— it came out as an almost imperceptible shift in volume and pitch, but she seemed to acknowledge it, her eyes slowly rising from the floor to meet his, wide, shattered blue-and-silver gems that weren’t mean to exist.  
“ _Good. Don’t move._ ”  
He slowly started to snip her bangs, and her eyes fell closed again as she listened to the quiet swish-snip of the scissors, thick, dark lashes casting light, feathery shadows down her cheeks.  
He put his hand on her chin again to hold her head still, forcing himself to focus on cutting her hair and not staring at her facial features.  
But he couldn’t help it; some part of his mind was obsessed with cataloguing her features into categories: human. elf. neither.

  
Nose.  
Elvish. Slim, pointed up a bit at the end.  
Brows.  
Human. Thick, straight, dark.  
Eyes?  
Neither. Both.

Her cheekbones were high, her jawline clear but slim— her face had a distinct heart-shape, and fortunately for her, her human parent must have been quite a delicate person.  
He finished cutting her hair, now styled in a side-swept pixie cut, shortest on the back and longest at the front, framing her face with long, wispy bangs.  
With the clean, new cut, she already looked significantly more elvish— the light, short style making her appear more wispy and ethereal herself.  
“ _Done. Turn back around so I can dye your hair._ ”  
She opened her eyes drowsily and complied, and he went, got the dye and a pair of gloves, and returned.  
He took the dye between his palms and warmed it up before working it into her hair, making sure to get it all the way down to the roots. The elvish dye was oil-based and deep-conditioning, and such a dark color would be permanent unless a remover was used, though it wouldn’t stain her skin.  
He massaged it in as he would for himself, and watched amusedly as Akaya relaxed and leaned her head into his hands, her breathing slow and even.  
The short cut of her hair allowed him to see clearly her shoulders and back, and especially with the thin, wet grey sweater she had, clinging to her skin, he could see her spine and her shoulder blades protruding just enough to for her to seem uncomfortably thin. With each breath, the imprint of her ribs became painfully clear and then less so, over and over and over in a hypnotically simple pattern.  
He also noticed that despite rinsing her down with the shower head not half an hour ago, the sweater seemed to have gotten— dirtier. The dark stains were more widespread, and in more places... he brushed it off, thinking that getting the cloth wet had simply allowed the stains to spread out and darken.  
“ _Done_ ,” He stated simply as he finished dying the last part of her human-like hair. He turned the water on low to rinse the dye from his gloves and to wash the cut hair down the drain before shutting it off, trying to ignore the strange, fluttery tingle in the tips of his fingers as he thought of Akaya’s sleepy face in his hand, her jaw so perfectly fit to his palm...


	8. To Read in Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dark secret is revealed after a small quarrel between Kandomere and Akaya.
> 
> ((TW: Graphic description of torture scars))

“ _Leave it to dry and wash it out later._ ”

He stepped out of the shower, pleased with how painlessly the process had gone; his shirt wasn’t even wet.   
He opened the bathroom pantry and handed her a soft, black towel, wrapping it around her shoulders. He felt less disgusted by contact with her, now that she was rinsed clean and less... human-looking.  
“ _Come with me._ ”  
He walked her back to the main area, grabbed a random bag of clothes, then lead her into a smaller, darker room, where there were two machines set into the right wall, and one spanning the left— a washer, a dryer, and an automatic steam iron.   
He took out the clothes, fishing around in the bag until he found something cordinateable— a deep red tank top with lace detailing and a pair of loose velvet shorts in the same color. He handed them to her and then pointed to the washing machine.  
“ _Wash your clothes in here and change into the new ones,_ ” He told her dryly. “ _Come out_   _when you’re done_.”  
He turned to go but she reached out, stopping him.  
“ _W-Wait, I don’t know how to use..._ ”  
He turned back around, shaking his head.  
“ _Just read the menu and select an auntomatic setting—_ “  
“ _I can’t read,_ ” She stumbled out, her cheeks burning with humiliation. “ _No one— no one ever bothered to teach me._ ”  
He looked at her in wild confusion for a moment, bewildered that someone her age couldn’t read. She really was... helpless.  
He sighed.  
“ _...Fine. What kind of material are you wearing?_ ”  
“ _...They’re... grey?_ ”  
He inhaled, about to scold her for telling him such useless information— he needed to know what fabric it was, not the damn color, he could see the color. But he stopped himself, biting on his pride and pompousness to stop himself snapping at her.  
She couldn’t help it.  
“ _Never mind._ ”  
He set it to the default wash setting and turned to go.  
“ _Press the big blue button when you’re done putting your clothes inside. It won’t take more that 10 minutes to wash, one sweater and pair of underwear isn’t very much._ ”  
He turned and left her, sure she could handle that much by herself.  
He headed into the kitchenette, taking a large bottle of Dorwinian wine from his refrigerator and popping the cork. He was going to save it for a special occasion— that brand of elvish wine was the finest and most intoxicating on the planet, strong enough to knock a human out with just a whiff and sweet enough to lock your lips to the cup until you were beyond wasted.   
However, the stress of the situation was more than enough to wear down his reservation, so he poured himself a glass straight, no ice, no thinner, nothing but straight Dorwinian.  
He threw back his first glass like a shot, not even caring to savor it. It hit his bloodstream almost instantly and he felt his migraine recede a fair bit. He poured another glass and then corked the bottle again before going at the second glass, hoping to curb his drinking.  
It was, after all, enchanted elvish wine.  
He resolved to slowly sipping his second glass, trying to enjoy the hypnotically sweet flavor. About halfway through the second glass, he heard the dryer stop and then Akaya was shuffling out, closing the door behind her.  
She walked to the kitchenette slowly, and he felt a small flicker of distaste as he saw that she had put on her old, ratty sweater over the nice clothes that he had bought for her. Granted, it was clean now and free from stains, but the hems were tattered and it was rife with stress marks and holes.  
He set his glass of wine down and stood, approaching her.  
“ _Why are you still wearing that disgusting sweater? Take it off._ ”  
She shook her head and stopped walking towards him, freezing in place.  
“ _No— Please don’t make me take it off—“_  
 _“Akaya that thing is in ruins, I bought you plenty new ones—“_  
He grabbed her arm and she made a loud, sharp noise someplace between a gasp and a whine— and he let go immediately, stepping back from her a moment.  
“ _What is it—_ “  
He looked to the arm he had grabbed and saw that, where his hand had been around her wrist, a few small, dark stains had appeared— and he began to slowly realize why the sweater had gotten “dirtier” when he soaked her down, why she reacted so painfully to soap and water, why she may have put the sweater back on.  
“ _Akaya, what are you hiding from me?_ ”  
She was frozen in place, her elbows glued to her sides, her eyes wide— and then she was looking anywhere but his eyes, crossing her arms over her stomach, lowering her head, taking small steps backwards. She had no words— too afraid of the truth, too shy for a denial, and too naïve for a lie.  
He approached her and reached behind her to grab at the back of her sweater and she finally spoke, shouting for him to stop, squirming and pushing against him.  
But he was stronger and larger than her and his hands found the hem of her sweater. In one quick, deft move, he started to tug it off, a symphony of ripping sounds ensuing as she struggled to keep it on.  
Eventually, however, his strength and upper hand won out, and Akaya fell back into the floor as the sweater ripped in two and she lost her footing.  
There was a painful crack as she hit the floor, her head bouncing disturbingly— he instantly regretted being so rough and moved to apologize and comfort her— but froze as soon as he saw what she was hiding.  
Elvish runes were cut up and down her arms, and the insides of her wrist held multiple scars and fresh wounds that ran from the heel of her palm up into the crease of her elbows. The runes and verses cut up and down her arms, over her shoulders, and from what he could see, down under her shirt in front and assumedly down the back as well.   
Some seemed years old, pearly and white— some younger but healed, more of a soft pink, and some even scabbed or actively open and puffy, raised letters on her flesh.  
He stopped, breathing heavily from wrestling with her over the sweater, and then spoke, too shocked to do anything more.  
“ _What the fuck did they do to you?_ ”  
His voice was a soft, deadly, delicate growl, and held and edge behind it, a threat. He didn’t like the words on her skin. Dark words. Evil words. Old words...  
Curses.  
Spells of the darkest kind.

She didn’t respond, only shaking and gasping softly, hurt and dazed, with no words to use to answer him. The split in the center of her lip now had a darker meaning— and he realized the nicks on her cheeks were symmetrical.  
He dropped the shreds of her old sweater and crouched by her side, slipping his hand under her neck and gently lifting her up.  
“ _I’m sorry I forced you. But we have to take care of this..._ ”  
He paused to brush one of the marked and she inhaled sharply, her eyes going wide— but his body reacted much differently to the alarmed sound than he should have, and he found himself shoving down the urge to make her gasp like that again. What was he thinking? She was in pain. They— they used her had some kind of living voodoo doll. He shouldn’t be thinking—  
He pushed the thoughts aside and lifted her up gingerly, guiding her to lie back against the kitchenette counters, before opening a few cabinets overhead and taking out medical supplies. Her eyes were screwed shut and her jaw was locked, so her head must have hurt from falling backwards...  
He crouched by her side, put an ice pack behind her head and then dampened a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide, stressing silently. Where would he even start? There were marks everywhere.   
He grit his teeth and figured he’d start anywhere, just for the sake of getting started, and took the arm nearest to him and dabbed at an open wound near her wrist.  
Her eyes flew open and she gasped sharply, her lips parted as her back arched and she curled her toes in pain. She whined and started to draw her hand away, but he held it firmly, shaking his head.  
“ _Akaya I’m trying to help you. I know it hurts, but you might get infections if we don’t clean your— injuries..._ ”  
She didn’t say anything, but grit her teeth and leaned back again, squeezing her eyes shut and forcing herself to breathe steadily but forcefully. She jerked her head away from him and the stinging peroxide and he realized then she was used to sitting though painful experiences, and while the though disturbed him greatly, he forced himself to finish the job.  
Ten minutes in and he had done one arm— twenty five minutes and both arms, as well as the skin visible above the top of her tank top were done. She had taken it remarkably well, only occasionally gasping or wincing, her hands balled into fists and her feet flexing and kicking.  
And then he went to gently pull the hem of her tank top up and it was worse, so much worse than he though— painstakingly crafted lines and curved traced the shapes of her ribs and trailed down her abdomen, coming to a tapered stop just above the waistband of her shorts. He pushed her tank top up to just under her breasts and pressed the now blood-stained cotton ball against the few fresh marks on her torso, before guiding her to lean forward so he could tend to her back, where he found sick designs framing her spine and the continuations of the lines of her ribs arcing up to connect to it. Down the vertebrae of her spine were more elvish runes, old and long-scarred.  
He felt strangely numb, blotting the red marks with the cotton ball, watching as hydrogen peroxide and blood dripped down her sallow, sickly skin. It nauseated him that someone could be treated like this, regardless of race. Akaya was so... innocent.   
It wasn’t her that was evil. Just her blood that was used for evil. Magic is the energy of the inbetween— and she was as inbetween as one could get, so obviously she would be highly desired by a group like the Inferni, who sought to abuse and misuse the ancient energy.  
He wondered if she had a family. If the human and elf who created her were actually in love, or if they were forced or simply did the deed to get the child and use it.   
She grew up with this. This... objectification, torture, hurt.  
He heard her voice in his head, his mind marveling at it’s softness. Decades in law enforcement had turned his heart hard and his mind cold; a lifetime of misery had not yet taken the gentleness from her heart, nor the hope in her mind.  
He finished the job and leaned back with a sigh, taking out a roll of bandages pre-treated on one side with healing salve.  
“This will feel much better. I promise.”  
Her eyes were shut now, but at his words, her breathing slowed shakily, until it was some semblance of relaxed. He slowly wound the roll of bandages around her too-thin arms and torso, carefully tying it off and securing it in place.   
He felt sick. Angry, furious, murderous. This is what the Inferni did? Torture innocent... people for their own sick rituals? Keep them caged in little boxes until their blood was needed?   
And— society had the audacity to think that Akaya was the monster.  
“ _All done._ ”  
It was deep into the night, now, and the soft blue lanterns were the only things lighting the apartment. Akaya was too weak and worn-out to move, so he lifted her arm over his shoulder and then scooped her up, taking her to one of his leather couches and lying her down. He walked off and returned with several soft, warm blankets, laying them over her before guiding a pillow under her head. She curled up in a tiny ball and snuggled under the blankets, her now-short and fluffy mop of hair only just peeking out from under the blanket, the feathery white-and-black locks at the top splayed on the dark leather pillow.  
He stood over her with a discontented expression; the range of emotions he was accessory to were bothering him greatly.  
He was concerned, mostly— Akaya didn’t seem to have any self-identity at all, and that was incredibly dangerous to her. He knew he wanted to protect her, but if she fell back into wicked hands, she wouldn’t even know how to try to say no.  
Sure, he had seen a defensive spark back at HQ— but that was when she was threatened with death. He had to teach her...   
He grit his teeth. There was another thing— frustration. She was so damn helpless. He knew he had to help her and he felt that he could trust only himself to do the job right— but there was so much she had to learn... For Jirak’s sake, she didn’t even know how to read.   
But...  
There was potential.  
She had potential.

He just had to help her find it and protect her while she learned to master it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow okay that chapter got a lot darker than I intended????? But I don’t want to make it... less serious, I guess. But I’m also afraid I may have gone a bit overboard? Let me know...


	9. The Bittersweet Aftertase of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akaya samples a simple luxury of “free” life and decides its all she’ll ever have wanted from life.
> 
> TW: Intense sequences and connotations of past abuse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally!!!! I updated!!!  
> Sorry for the wait. I was trying to update once a day, but my spring semester just started, and I’m taking, like, 12 classes. My brain is officially fried. Anyways, I hope this chapter will do!!
> 
> also there’s a fuck ton of typos, hate me, it’s past my bedtime and i’m too damn tired to proofread

He rose early the next morning, before dawn, and dressed silently, intending to go to work and tie up a few loose ends before returning to deal with... her.  
He left his room and, passing the living room, paused to check on Akaya.  
She was where he had left her exactly; sleeping in the same position, same spot... The only change was that the blankets had shifted back from her feet and shoulders, and he could see in the dim, bluish, pre-dawn light that she was shivering in her sleep.  
He sighed; elves do not suffer greatly from cold, but once again, her human traits were overruling her would-be elvish ones.  
He came near and began to pull them back over her exposed skin, looking away from the pale white bandages that sheltered her wounds.  
His hand brushed her shoulder briefly and she started in her sleep, subconsciously jerking away from his touch. He felt a stab of displeasure, upset that she wasn’t yet comfortable... before relenting as he rationalized that it would take longer than a day for her to move on from her abusive past.  
He knelt next to the couch, making a few soft, soothing sounds.  
_“It’s me.”_  
_“Blue?”_ She asked softly, reaching her hand out. He didn’t take it in his own, but he didn’t swat it away either. He simply let her touch his shoulder sleepily, her thin, willowy fingers running over the hem of his sleeve before falling limp. He felt a strange tingle in his hand as she did so, but made a fist a few times to brush it off.  
“ _Kandomere_...” He corrected weakly; he found that he was quickly losing the desire to correct the nickname she had for him. It was... childish, granted, but... oddly endearing. “ _I’m going to work. I’ll come back as soon as I can._ ”  
She murmured something quietly, and he didn’t quite understand— but he didn’t care, and continued talking.  
“ _Don’t open the door to anyone. Don’t let anyone know you’re here. Okay?”_  
“Mmm....” She mumbled softly, and she tucked her face into the blankets. He sighed, going to stand.  
“ _I’ll set out food for you on the counter..._ ”  
“Nn.”  
He shifted on his feet, her soft, quiet, nonverbal responses making his blood burn.  
He turned, went to the kitchenette, and tried his best to quietly set out a bowl of fruit salad for her. He himself simply took a long drink of fruit-infused diet water before heading out the door.  
Dawn came and passed, as well as morning, mid-morning, and then noon arrived and finally Akaya lifted her head from the pillow, her cheek streaked with crease marks from the leather pillow.  
She squirmed until the blankets were all untangled from her body, her expression pinched and stressed.  
After she got free from the blankets, she paused a moment to sit on the faux leather couch and shiver, blinking blearily in the noon light.  
She barely remembered what Kandomere had told her hours ago, but two words stuck out clearly in her memory thanks to the sharp pinch of hunger in her stomach.

  
_Counter._

  
_Food._

She got up and wavered a moment on her feet; she stood up too quickly, and, frail as she was, it sent her vision into a dizzying grey tunnel, and she almost lost her balance.  
But she put her hands on the arm of the couch and stood still, shivering, until she could see clearly again. Starving, cold, and weak, she shuffled to the bowl on the counter, sliding clumsily into the barstool that was too tall for her.  
It was a bowl of sliced fresh fruit; apple, strawberry... Some blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and finally, a few sliced cucumber pieces and sturdy vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower.  
She poked at the colorful bowl curiously, leaning her head down to sniff it briefly and eye the dewy fruits.  
She wasn’t used to food like this; she was fed, normally, either large chunks of old meat that made her sick to her stomach or sloppy handfuls of milk-soggy bread.  
Curious, she bit into one firm, scarlet red strawberry, and when the sweet flavor broke across her tongue, her eyes widened and, without finishing the strawberry, grabbed a slice of cucumber to take a bite of.  
With each consecutive bite, she became more excited and eager, digging into the healthy, fresh food with nectar-slick fingers, the tender flesh of the fruits sticking underneath her fingernails.  
But then—  
_BANGBANGBANG_  
—and she panicked, leaping away from the counter, toppling the barstool and knocking the bowl to the ground with a silence-shattering clatter. She hit the floor palms-first and pain shot through her wrists, eliciting a frightened yelp.  
Someone was at the door; she remembered then what Kandomere had said and she panicked, looking for a place to hide.  
“ _Akaaaaaaaya_ ,” A sweet, sickly familiar voice cooed from the door. “ _Akaya... I know you’re in there. You’ll open the door for Auntie Ulanna, won’t you, darling?”_  
Akaya began to hyperventilate; she knew that voice. Ulanna. The touchy one. Grabby, so grabby, and she smiled so much when it was her turn to perform rituals. The others just got it over with and let Akaya’s blood spill without thinking about it.  
But oh, Ulanna never let a single cut go without a smile to accompany it.  
She scuttled on the floor a few feet before getting up and running one of the few rooms Kandomere had let her into before; the laundry room.  
Ulanna heard her footfalls fairly clearly through the front door and banged again, her voice an octave higher.  
“ _Akaya! Akaya, my darling, my baby girl, you open this door for Auntie Ulanna RIGHT NOW!_ ”  
Akaya struggled with the doorknob to the laundry room for a few seconds and whined before finally getting it open. She shut it behind herself carefully and then looked around in a panic for a place to hide.  
There was nowhere. Just three plain walls and a nook for hanging clothes and storing laundry baskets.  
There was weak, garbled laughter from the door.  
“ _Akaya... Akaya, my precious, disgusting, half-bred baby girl... You have... one... more... chance... to open this door._ ”  
Akaya turned in a frantic circle in the dark laundry room. No lock on the door.  
She could feel her heart in her chest like a beating drum, the adrenaline in her veins like a thousand tiny needles. Her lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air; breathing was too loud. Too risky.  
With nowhere else to go, she opened the washing machine and clambered in, shutting the door behind herself. She pressed herself against the barriers of the tiny metal chamber to hide from the glass front, as she once used to curl away from the feeding slot in her old box. Terror commanded her mind and she felt her sanity reeling away as the cold metal walls of the washing chamber sapped the warmth from her skin. She was back in a box again.  
Locked away in fear.  
“ _AKAYA_!”  
It was muffled; but not nearly enough. She could still hear Ulanna, through the front door, through the loft, through the laundry room door, through the washing machine door. She could hear the door getting broken in, and Ulanna’s angry footsteps into the apartment.  
“ _Oh, you’ve been spoiled,_ ” Ulanna growled from the kitchen. The elf-woman was standing there in a navy blue blazer with blocky shoulders and a high collar, tight black leather jeans, color-block patterned stilettos, and a black-and-white abstract patterned ruffled blouse that just barely peeked out from under her blazer. Her hair was styled in a stiff bob with equally stiff and straight bangs, her face long, pale, and sunken.  
She was standing over the fallen barstool and upturned bowl of fruit, kicking it callously aside with an angered scream.  
“ _He’s SPOILED YOU! You’ve been a VERY BAD GIRL!”_  
Akaya kicked and sobbed from inside the machine, biting on the hems of her bandages anxiously, a hundred and one glittery tear tracks staining her cheeks. Anything but this. She was almost tempted to just let Ulanna find her so she wouldn’t have to sit and simmer in her own terror and trepidation. But that would be worse, so, so much worse in such a violently different way.  
Ulanna was holding a poisoned dagger like a sickle in her hand, twisted and razor-sharp. She began to sneak around, searching for Akaya, her efforts interspersed with furious screams as she turned up nothing time and time again.  
The Inferni’s anger only grew with each failed hiding place; she tore through the blankets around the couch when she found them empty, shoved Kandomere’s bed into the wall when Akaya wasn’t under it. She slammed doors and kicked things over and suddenly _WHAM_ and the laundry door was thrown open, slamming violently off of the wall.  
Ulanna stood in the doorway, panting, and Akaya though she might choke on her own heartbeat as the Inferni walked in front of the washing machine and toppled the stack of laundry baskets with an enraged howl.  
But Ulanna immediately turned back around and rushed out to search in the next room, and Akaya was left shaking and nauseated, so terrified she nearly passed out.  
Akaya closed her eyes, her bottom lip trembling, and curled up small, broken and afraid. How could she have had... hope? She’d always be in a box. Afraid. Used. Hurt. This was her place. In the dark, alone, terrified, sick. Part of her wanted to reach out for Blue, for Kandomere, to protect her, to save her again. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t depend on someone else to protect her.  
She opened the door and stepped out, shaking with sobs.

  
She wasn’t surrendering.

  
This wasn’t her giving in.

  
It was her giving up.

  
Each footstep seemed to take a thousand years as she walked out of the laundry room. She was sick of it. One day of semi-freedom and she was back in the dark. She was tired. She’d tasted a sweeter life, and there was no way she was getting dragged back into the fear and pain and misery.  
She walked into the main area and stood still, shoulders slumped, eyes dead and dim. Ulanna turned around and saw her; Akaya didn’t move. This was it.

  
“ _There you are,_ ” Ulanna growled with a sick, crooked smile.

“ _My bad, bad girl._ ”


	10. See Eye-to-Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAMN wow okay this is INTENSE. TWO CRAZY CHAPTERS IN ONE DAY AMEN
> 
> HUGE TRIGGER WARNING FOR INTENSE, DESCRIPTIVE VIOLENCE AND ABUSER INTERACTION.
> 
> I hope this isn't too much, y'all... I'm angry and tired and I can't help that my muse wants this to be as dramatic and violent as possible (since I usually stick to strictly soft fluff, oof!) so I can break out of my comfort zone. This will probably be the last extremely violent chapter! I don't plan thus far any more intense sequences...

Kandomere sat at his office desk in terse silence, his eyes fairly glazed from hours and hours of staring into his computer screen. Typically he wouldn't be doing this sort of work; tedious desk work was for lower-ranking human agents. His usual job was to supervise Magic Taskforce raids and help train new elvish recruits, but he didn't trust anyone else with this task.

Only he could do this right.

Half-breed Protection Agency.

He was drafting a plan for a new branch of the FBI— HPA. He'd locked himself in his office and worked on an intensive, detailed, perfectly organized plan for the introduction, establishment, management, and budget; he'd drafted a handful of new laws to accompany it, as well as designed three Public Service Announcement pamphlets on half-breed matters. He was going to get this done right. He was going to get Akaya as normalized a life as he could.

And he would put his own throne atop his creation.

His eyes narrowed at the thought; both out of creeping shame over his not-entirely-altruistic motives and out of impatience for the culmination of his plan.

He was bored, now, though, and needed fresh air; if elves had any weaknesses, it was the intense discomfort of disconnection from nature. The various exotic and magical plants he had confiscated for evidence and then confiscated from evidence for 'personal safekeeping' kept his office mostly bearable but his skin was itching for sunlight.

He rose, sighed, and went to the window; it was legal code for all cohabitational offices to prioritize giving elves windowed offices. But the brassy, filtered sunlight felt wrong, and he was about to turn away when his impeccable elvish vision locked onto a disturbing sight.

He could see a city away, in the Special Elven DIstrict, through the paneled windows on the south side of his high-rise apartments that someone in a dark suit was banging on his door. 

He grabbed his suit jacket and bolted for the door, calling Montehugh from the office across the hall. 

"MONTEHUGH! Send a SWAT team to my apartment _NOW_. If I get there before them, you're all _fired_!"

 He threw his jacket on as he ran down to the parking lot, jumping into his car and gunning the engine, flipping a switch that caused his car's usual sleek black color to fade into the official Magic Taskforce Vehicle colors.

He tore out of the headquarters and went racing down the freeway, a set of lights and alarms rising from near-invisible hatches in his hood.

Perks of the job, you could say. Tricked out sportscar...

He shook his head. Focus! 30-minute drive going speed-limit from HQ to his loft. He checked his spedometer— he was pushing double the speed limit.

_Fifteen minutes._

Screw red lights.

_Ten minutes._

He floored the gas, his expression dark and murderous. Ten minutes seemed to drag on despite how break-neck he was going.

He parked so quickly and ferociously that he was sure he'd given himself whiplash. And then there was the antsy, horrible wait as the car lift rose up to the top floor; he ignored all safety protocol and exited the car, drawing his state-issued weapon from his glovebox, standing right in front of the car. 

Almost there.

_Almost there..._

 

Inside, Akaya stood dead still while Ulanna crept towards her, blade drawn. The older elf stood right before Akaya, grabbing Akaya's jaw in her hand roughly, causing Akaya to squeeze her eyes shut and whine.

 _"I was so... **worried**... when my Inferni sisters... returned without you..."_ Ulanna cried falsely in a deceptively soft tone. _"I thought... men had taken you... dirty... sinful **men**..."_

She stopped and rubbed Akaya's cheek with a touch too much force, her brows knitted together between devastation and hellish fury.

_"Have they touched you? The wicked men of the world... Have they soiled your purity?"_

Akaya didn't respond and Ulanna backhanded her, drawing blood with her ornate, bezel-set rings.

 _"ANSWER ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU!"_ Ulanna roared, spittle landing on Akaya's cheek. Akaya recoiled and cried out as Ulanna grabbed her upper arm and twisted it in a vice-like grip.

 _"No!"_ Akaya cried weakly, shaking violently. She should have stayed hidden. Why couldn't she restrain herself? Stepping out of the washing machine had been suicide.

" _No WHAT?!_ " Ulanna demanded in a furious howl, making Akaya jump and jerk her head away from the jarring sound.

 _"N-No, they did not... Auntie Ulanna..._ "

Ulanna immediately became sickly calm again, smiling warmly and petting Akaya's hair.

" _If only Leilah were here..._ " Ulanna crooned sadly. " _So that she may see... how well I have trained you... that you always will obey me in the end..."_

And then Ulanna became a rage-driven monster once again, throwing Akaya to the ground and straddling the smaller she-elf, laying her full weight on Akaya's abdomen. She drew the blade back and held it in her non-dominant hand to show it off.

 _"You remember Lucy, yes? My favorite blade... My favorite..."_ Ulanna echoed, spinning it to shine in the light. " _She will kiss your skin one... last... time. And then... You can tell Leilah how good you are all by yourself!"_

Kandomere kicked the door in just as Ulanna finished speaking and his mind went into overdrive. 

Akaya's eyes met his for a fraction of a second and he saw in them fear and hopelessness and weakness. Hearing Kandomere enter, Ulanna grabbed a slim, throwing-dagger and chucked it over her shoulder deftly. Kandomere ducked, but not enough; it buried deep into his shoulder under his collarbone and sinking in down to the hilt.

And a second later, Ulanna was tossing "Lucy" from one hand to another, aiming to tear apart Akaya's throat before Kandomere could reach them both. Kandomere hit the wall, pain radiating from the injury; it was poisoned. His vision was crystal clear, however, when he watched as the blade in Ulanna's hands passed through the air. 

Seconds passed as years; seeing Kandomere hit the wall like than broke Akaya's hopelessness and her hand shot up in between Ulanna's and her fingers grasped the hilt, pushing it forward blindly. 

There was a sickening mushing sensation followed by a jarring snap and then a grating stop as the blade plunged into Ulanna's left eye, ricocheted off of her orbital rim, and then slammed to a stop as it broke into the back of Ulanna's skull.

Ulanna screamed in agony at first and Akaya screamed back in terror and panic, twisting her wrist. Blood gushed over her hand and down onto her shirt, and for a moment Ulanna weakly tried to choke Akaya before the wound finally killed her.

Kandomere's vision began to waver and fade in and out of focus. He couldn't stay awake much longer. But... Akaya had defended herself. He had seen with what little clarity he had left how she'd snatched the dagger from the air, heard the sound of Ulanna's death and cold still hear Akaya's weak and frightened cries. Ulanna's body slumped onto Akaya and the smaller she-elf fought to push the limp body off before crawling over to Kandomere, eyes panicked and cloudly."Blue

" _Blue..._ " She cried softly, touching his face with a blood-soaked hand, her fingertips leaving crimson streaks on his pale cheek. " _Don't go. Stay awake..._ "

He scowled darkly and gave a harsh, short, dry laugh, leaning his head back.

" _You... are so much trouble... I barely think it's worth it,_ " He murmured in a frustrated tone; though it was laced with relief and pride. She had pulled off such a reckless and coordinated defense. She could be taught how to stand up for herself. He could teach her how. His project... His mission... His protege.

_...Or more?_

He was too tired to think of that.

He couldn't feel his left arm. Blood soaked from the wound in his left shoulder.

He never realized how beautiful her eyes actually were once he got past their heterochromatic nature.

_Silver stars in a navy blue sky..._

He grit his teeth against his rapidly-softening thoughts. He couldn't afford to slide into a calm daze. It was too risky.

The SWAT team stormed the room. They can't have been more than a minute late... but it had been such a precious minute. So much had happened.

Akaya was panicking. Her hands fluttered around the dagger hilt in his shoulder, trying to think of how to help, before one of the SWAT members scooped her up to take her to safety. Akaya screamed and fought back, not understanding they meant well. _Fools!_ Of course they scared her. She knew no better. They had no tact...

His vision was milky and cloudly now. Damn, why'd he ever chose to care for her? It was so... so much trouble...

But he couldn't stand the idea of someone else doing the job. Who else could do it as well as he could? Who else would do everything and more for her? Who else would... think of her... a half-breed... so... very... very...

affectionately?

Yes.

_Affection._

_Who else would?_

He couldn't think up a response.

_He couldn't think at all. The darkness swallowed all his thoughts and the world became a void to him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huehuehuehuehue who noticed the lil bit of Tolkien elvish magic I threw in there huh? no? just me being way too neurotic about elvish culture? it's okay. I enjoy it and that's all that matters hahaaaaaaaaaaaaa


	11. Home is Where the Heart is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kandomere comes to at a hospital and immediately rushes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness, I have been away for a while. I'm taking 10+ hours of class daily this semester, and it really is destroying my will to write outside of mandatory assignments... Please pray for my creative drive RIP
> 
> Anyways, here's a pretty world-building focused chapter... with some fluff at the end :))

Kandomere woke up in a daze, weak and ill. The blade must have been poisoned with burr-root— the only elvish poison— a rare and illegal plant. He always wanted to add one to his collection. When they raid the next Inferni hideout... He might finally get his hands on one.

But he had to wake up all the way first.

The first thing he saw were the soft, blue hospital lights over his gurney; the next, the weak dawn light starting to filter in through the window. It was an elvish hospital, thank god— with the most current and developed medical equipment and technology.

The nurse at his side immediately stood, and he instantly knew she was a Siren; her wings were folded back and tied with a pretty, powder blue bow, and her hypnotic eyes were covered by rose-tinted glasses.

“Hey there, sugar,” She started in a slow, soothing tone, reaching out to check his IV and vitals. Her enchanted voice calmed him to the point that he didn’t care that she’d called him something so affectionate and familiar. “How do you feel?”

He opened his mouth to speak but found no words; a feeding tube was in his throat and he gaged on it for a moment.

“Oh darling, I’m sorry, let me get that for you alright?”

She leaned in close and he could see through her glasses how full and thick her lashes were, how glittery and clear and wide her eyes were...

And then he felt her pulling out the feeding tube and he fought the urge to gag and choke on it. The hypnotic moment was broken by the nauseating sensation and he screwed his eyes shut until she gave him the all-clear.

“There you go, sweetheart, all clear. Anything else bothering you?”

He shook his head slowly, clearing his throat with as much strength as he could.

“No.”

His voice was ragged and hoarse, and she gave him a soft, pitying smile and offered him a cup of sweet, warm syrup to soothe his throat as she began a routine check-up.

“Can you feel everything alright? ...Good, good... Can you wiggle your fingers for me? Your toes? Roll your ankles? Bend and extend your knees... Good, good!”

Normally such a tedious and slow exam would have aggravated him... but her voice was so soothing and melodic that he couldn’t help but be calm and compliant.

No wonder all sirens had to register with the government and could only work in certain fields.

She went through everything bit by bit before allowing him to sit up.

“Almost done, sugar pie,” She crooned softly. “Vision okay? Can you see straight? Any double vision or tunnel vision?”

“A bit cloudy.” He answered dully. Her hypnotic charm may have lulled him into quiet complacency, but he was no human. He wouldn’t be drooling after her every word.

“Hm... Well, I suppose that’s expected. Any questions before I call the doctor?”

He paused.

“How long have I been out?” He demanded immediately.

“Three days,” She offered with a sweet smile. “Oh, and; an... Agent Novak? Left a message for you.”

“What is it?” Kandomere snapped suddenly, the memory of his less-than-likable boss aggravating him.

“She said...”

The siren-nurse lifted a paper in her clipboard and gave a distasteful sigh.

“‘I ordered the’...” She started before frowning at the less-than-polite word choice. “...'brat be left at your residence. Hurry up and get your job done or I’ll do it for you.’”

Kandomere grit his teeth angrily. Damned bitch.

“How quickly can I be out of here??”

She panicked, waving her hands from side to side.

“N-No, you have to stay a few days so we can make sure you heal alright and—“

“No. I can take care of it myself. Let me out!”

“But sweetie, the doctor still has to—“

“I’ve had enough. I’m checking out.”

“Well I—“

The siren met his eyes, and, seeing the dead-set iron-clad determination in his eyes, relented with a sigh, pausing to pull off her large, circular glasses and rub her eyes.

“I... suppose... I can’t stop you...”

“Good.”

He rose to sit up and made a disgusted ‘tch’ sound when he saw his paper hospital smock.

“My clothes?”

She turned behind her and procured a clean, pressed, and an orderly-folded stack of clothing for him.

“They’ve been dry cleaned for you, but I’m afraid they haven’t been... tailored.”

She offered them to him and he looked down in disdain at the ragged lapel of his suit and the frayed gash in his shirt. What a joke. There would be no repairing that damage.

Hell, at least it was one of his older suits. Still, he wouldn’t be caught dead walking around in a torn suit.

“I’ll leave you to it, then, sugar, but make sure you check out at the front desk...”

She left, her sweetly-perfumed rose-colored waves swinging after her as she went. He dressed and did his best to fold the rip down flat before leaving the room.

He walked down to the front desk where a spritely young nymph was manning the checkout till.

“Kandomere. Room 214. Checking out.”

“On your feet already?” The nymph asked with a glittery smile, rows of fairy-like fangs glimmering in the lobby’s glaring white lighting. “I’m surprised. You’re one tough cookie.”

She scrawled something on a clipboard and showed him where to sign before offering him a tin of nymph candies.

“Complimentary,” She offered with a beaming smile. He hesitated; nymphs were among the more mischievous fae races, and he didn’t want to traipse into contract-territory.

“What, you worried I’ll put a spell on you?” She stated with a giggle. “Cross my heart and hope to die that it’s against company policy. They’re harmless joke candies.”

The flat-out swear soothed him, for fae cannot easily lie, and he selected a small white mint.

“Good choice!”

Upon placing the mint in his mouth, he felt a sudden rush of freezing energy wash over him and shook his head weakly, feeling uncomfortably deep-cleaned, as if he had just been blasted clean with a pressure hose.

But he was dry and his clothes perfectly clean-pressed and repaired; his hair was magically washed and softened. The nymph tittered wildly with laughter before locking the tin of candies back up.

“Oh goodness me, that’s always a good one,” She told her coworker with a dazzling grin before waving her hand towards Kandomere, the scales on the back of her hand shimmering dully. “You can go now, sir, just don’t go telling any humans we’re handing out nymph candies, alright? I can’t promise I won’t break policy to have one of those cleaning up after me at home!”

Kandomere gave a short, curt, nonverbal response to the statement and headed to the door, leaving the two nymphs at the front desk tittering away to themselves.

A private valet drove him back to his apartment building, the sour-faced orc dead silent the entire trip. Kandomere was tense— he didn’t know what he would come home to.

But he came home alright, and when he reached his door, he found it repaired and renewed. He unlocked the door and stepped in— to an elated cry and a pair of arms wrapping around his neck. Well— at least Akaya was alright.

He took a moment to sigh and collect himself before taking in more of the situation.

She was clean— somehow. It didn’t particularly matter how. She was crying, too, but she seemed to be keeping it under control, not sobbing wildly or screaming. Her breathing was a little shaky and her eyes teary, that was all.

He gently removed her arms from around his neck, and as soon as she realized he was uncomfortable with her embrace she immediately let go and stepped away.

_“I thought you were dead,"_ She gasped softly, elvish.

_“Not quite—“_ He started, before a masculine voice behind them cleared their throat. He looked up and behind Akaya was a stranger in a government uniform.

_“I’m sorry to break up this... touching reunion, but I actually have important manners to attend to and this entire business has put me off-schedule.”_

Kandomere felt a flash of anger and insult; who was this human prick in his home insulting him? Did he not realize that Kandomere was taking out a massive chunk of his own life to care for her as well? Did he not realize that Kandomere’s own work was important as well? ...Though, he had to give him credit for how well-spoken the agent was in elvish.

He paused to calm himself before responding, reminding himself of humans’ short-lived folly.

_“Who are you?”_

_“An agent above your pay grade and rank. That is all you must know.” He snapped back before walking towards the two. “What is important is the matter of the half-breed.”_

The agent spoke of Akaya like she wasn’t even there, and it caused a spark of anger to almost break through Kandomere’s controlled manners. Jirak, everyone was being so damn intolerable.

_“You speak of it lightly,”_ Kandomere stated suspiciously. The agent laughed.

_“You think there’s no protocol on half-breeds at all?”_ The agent jeered. _“There’s a huge system in place. It’s simply... top-secret. All you need to know now is that Akaya is officially registered to you and she’s due for assimilation surgery in a week.”_

_“Assimilation surgery?”_

The agent grinned.

_“I’ve already talked to the half-breed about this. She’ll tell you later. Until then, your job is to keep her hidden here until she is fit to attend assimilation classes with other half-breeds in DC.”_

_“DC?”_ Kandomere demanded. _“She’s not leaving my care.”_

Akaya looked between them.

_“You... you never said I had to leave him to learn in DC!”_ She protested. _“No, I don’t want to go anymore!”_

The agent looked between them with a glare of disgusted amazement.

“ _Oh, don’t tell me you’ve gotten attached to_ it _?_ ” He scoffed. “ _An elf and a half-breed? That’s almost as disgusting as the pair that made the thing. Fine. Don’t get an education in a safe, regulated setting._ And you, Agent Kandomere—" He cut in in English. "—have fun with your pet.”

Akaya visibly cringed at the agent's tone and shuffled towards the counter, away from the agent, and slid at an angle so that Kandomere was between them.

“Enough. Get out,” Kandomere snapped.

“Don’t tell me twice,” The mysterious human agent jested before exiting.

There was some silence and Kandomere turned to face Akaya as soon as the agent was gone.

_“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”_

She looked up to him and shook her head, fidgeting a little.

_“Bruised... But okay.”_

He sighed and stepped forward to examine her more closely. Sure enough, there was a bruise on the side of her face. He reached out to touch it and she didn’t withdraw from his touch; a burst of victory lit up behind his eyes and he gently took a closer look, fingers skimming the bruise gently.

_“He didn’t treat it? Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”_

_“No...”_ She murmured softly. _“After... after what I did... The officers... they took me aside and cleaned me up. Then the agent arrived and shooed everyone away from me. I was trying to get to you, they were... dragging you away...”_

She looked panicked for a moment and he thought to comfort her; but then she cleared her throat and continued.

_“...He sat me down and lectured me about getting assimilation surgery and going to the academy. Then, for the next three days, he just... stayed around until you came back.”_

Kandomere glowered; while he did understand the certain... aloofness that having a high-ranking government job could bring, the idea that the man had just 'stayed around' instead of actively caring for the not-quite-independent half-elf aggravated him to no end.

_"What did you do?"_ He questioned, wondering what she had done for those three days, left to her own devices.

_"He taught me how to turn on the 'TV'. I can read now!"_ She started excitedly. 

_"You can?"_ He asked in confusion. She nodded and pointed to the currently muted TV. An elvish children's show was playing; right now, an animated mermaid was teaching the elvish letter 'm', how to say it and write it, and encouraging the viewer to read 'm' words along with her. Kandomere cringed slightly— how humiliating for her— before begrudgingly excusing the awkwardness. Hell, if she was going to learn anywhere... children's public programming was a good enough start.

_"Alright. Have you been eating well?"_ He asked, walking towards his bedroom and shrugging off his jacket. Akaya followed on light feet, bare soles silent on the wood floors.

_"Yes! He ordered— well he ordered me human food,"_ She explained lightly, following him into his bedroom and sitting on the edge of his bed. Kandomere didn't care enough to protest it. _"It's... It's greasy... but the meat is almost good when cooked!"_

_"Human food?"_ Kandomere questioned slowly from within his closet, changing with the door shut. He'd have to tell her about privacy soon, though... It wasn't like her being in his bedroom was that much of an issue, was it? _"From where? And... why specifically cooked?"_

She looked up in surprise.

" _Oh, from Mac-Do-nalds. And... is it not usually... raw?_ " She questioned curiously as he exited in casual, designer slacks. 

He scoffed at the mention of the human fast-food chain before becoming alarmed at her remark.

_"Raw? Absolutely not,"_ He remarked stiffly. _"It's unhealthy that way for humans. Raw meat is for orcs."_

_"But—"_ She started in a dim, sad, confused voice. _"I was_ always _fed raw meat."_

Kandomere turned to her in wild concern bordering on another burst of anger. Did anyone know how to properly care for her?! Would he have to do everything himself?

_"That's— that's incredibly unhealthy!"_ He remarked, standing before her assertively. "I doubt you should even be eating meat— let alone raw!"

_"I'm sorry..."_ She apologized softly, looking at the floor and hanging her head. Shit— he'd been too stiff with her, again. He really needed to... loosen up around her. Even the idea seemed preposterous— him, loosen up? Then again— she needed it.

_"It's not your fault,"_ He said with an attempt at a soft tone— it fell a little stiff, but... the thought counted. _"But no more meat from now on... alright?"_

She raised her head and looked up at him with an expression still full of guilt but now with a more soothed edge to it. He paused and then reached out and placed a hand on her cheek for just a moment, and felt a strange rush of pride when she leaned towards his hand as he pulled it away again.

_"Come. There's more to learn before I can leave you alone safely."_

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all this is my first time uploading a story on ao3 and I’m doing it from my phone so there’s a ton of weird typos from lag please have mercy and I PROMISE the story will pick up in the next chapter because OOF I love writing about these characters interacting too much skskskskskksksks
> 
> ALSO BIG THANKS TOOOOO RunMild ((https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunMild/pseuds/RunMild)) (I hope this link works ahhhh) [edit: RIP IT DOESN’T] for giving me the last push to post this fic aaaaaaaa go check out their Kandomere/ Reader fic it inspired this one and it’s so good OOF okay bye


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